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Weekend Open Forum: What's on your Taskbar (or Dock)?

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On October 19, 2012, 6:30 PM

The Windows Taskbar and OS X’s Dock have gone through a few changes over the years. But despite their evolution, at the core they are still all about being able to quickly launch your favorite or most frequently used applications and easily switch between open windows. With that in mind today we want to ask you: what programs do you keep pinned to your taskbar (or dock for Mac users) and why?

Feel free to include a screenshot with your comment (you'll need to switch to forum mode). Mine is posted above (OS X’s Dock) and includes Reeder to check my RSS feeds, Safari and Chrome for browsing, Transmit to upload files to the server, Pixelmator for some light graphics editing, HipChat for our internal communication at TechSpot, Things to keep track of to-do’s, and Apple’s Activity Monitor and Mail.

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User Comments: 59

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  1. Me first!

    Windows Explorer, Google Chrome, Xonar Essence STX Audio Center, Ccleaner, Auslogics Disk Defrag, SpyBot, Malwarebyte's Anti-Malware, Paint.net, Ventrilo Server, Calculator and Spotify.

    Only one desktop icon - shortcut to my data drive (H). I like a tidy desktop and taskbar. One of the reasons the Windows 8 Metro UI drives me insane.

  2. So this is prety much like a post your desktop thread.

  3. Google Chrome, Steam, Firefox, Ccleaner,Smart Defrag, Libre Office

  4. Winamp and Chrome pinned to task bar, plus no desktop icons at all

  5. Windows Explorer, WMP for music, ComicRack for reading manga, Paint.net, Evernote, MPC Home Cinema, IE and Chrome for browsing.

  6. Firefox, Chrome, tor, teamviewer, Remote desktop connection, putty, Outlook, notepadd++, Oracle Virtual box, VLC, steam, winamp, explorer, visual studio, calibre, whereisit, xampp, todolist, pcinventory list. I have 64 icons on desktop which I need to cleanup. No, I'm not listing them.

  7. A squashed mosquito and what looks to be some snot.

  8. Opera web browser on the task bar, various working, notes, downloads, dropbox, project shortcuts on my desktop (arranged in the corners). I Executor to run most applications so I don't really need taskbar clutter. Desktop shortcuts are a must for quick file copying etc.

  9. Staff

    I've got Firefox, Chrome, Outlook, Word, Excel, Onenote, Fireworks, Sublime Text, Calc, Notepad, WinSCP, Hipchat, Trillian and Windows Explorer, in that order.

    On my Mac I've got more or less the same combination of programs except for the Office software which absolutely stinks on that platform and some Mac replacements for the same functionality as above (e.g. Cyberduck instead of WinSCP).

  10. Linux : Konsole, Dolphin, Firefox, Thunderbird, Konversation, DeaDBeeF

    Windows : Windows Explorer, Firefox, Thunderbird, Pidgin, Windows Media Player

  11. Windows Explorer, Windows Media Player, google Chrome.

  12. Pale Moon, Windows Explorer, Total Commander, Winamp, MS Outlook, JDownloader

  13. Windows explorer, powerpoint, itunes, word, chrome, steam, realtemp, teamspeak, and adobe edge animate

  14. Explorer, for various folders; control panel; task manager, to see what's goin on; 2 opera browsers, for the private mode; firefox, for the extensions; mpc home cinema; utorrent; notepad++; virtualbox, for more privacy and don't mess with the host; sandboxie, to don't trash the system; calculator; windows media center; blender; audacity; picasa; copernic desktop search; foxit; crapcleaner; and jdownloader.

    I think that's it - for now.

  15. I use Windows 7 Bar, but ala XP (no smart bar), it's configured like this:

    Bar 1 <-> Windows 7 Bar <-> Bar 2 <-> Bar 3 <-> Bar 4

    Bar 1 [No label, text, large icons] = Bookshelf, Steam, LibreOffice, GuildWars 2

    Bar 2 [No label, no text, small icons] = Calc, DTools, Fraps, OnlyStopWatch, a text file.

    Bar 3 [No label, no text, small icons] = 5 shorcut to Backup Folders (not mine), KeePass

    Bar 4 [No label, text, large icons] = 2 Shorcuts to folders that I use for work and downloads.

    The size of the taskbar is 2 heights, never combine.

  16. My start button (which isnt going anywhere) and mozilla firefox. Helps keep organized for me to not have stuff all down there.

  17. Total Commander, IE9, Firefox, Opera, Windows Live Mail, StarTrekOnline, LordOfTheRingsOnline

    And of coarse the Recycle Bin on desktop.

    I like a tidy desktop and taskbar. One of the reasons the Windows 8 Metro UI drives me insane.
    I'm with ya, TomSEA!!

  18. Nothing. Windows indexes everything, and that eliminates the need to actually look for something.

  19. Moxilla firefox. skype, windows media player. that's it.

  20. Windows File Explorer, Google Chrome, Internet Explorer, Hyper-V Manager, Hyper-V Virtual Machine Connection

  21. Skype, xampp, eclipse, netbeans, virtualbox and most importantly chrome )

  22. Just Google Chrome and Skype. I feel Steam deserves a spot there too now after reading some of these.

  23. Nothing. Windows indexes everything, and that eliminates the need to actually look for something.

    Yeah, its so much easer to have to remember the exact spelling of every program and make sure you type it in flawlessly than to click on a single icon. Just like how a handcrank is so much better than turning an ignition key to start your horseless carriage.

  24. I got Google Chrome, Windows Explorer, Word, Kies, Task Manager, Free Make video converter, and Utorrent. (in that order)

  25. Chrome, Internet Explorer, Firefox, Explorer, Winamp.

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